Bailey, G. orcid.org/0000-0003-2656-830X and Milner, N. orcid.org/0000-0001-6391-9127 (2002) Coastal hunter-gatherers and social evolution: marginal or central? Before Farming [online version]. ISSN 1476-4261
Abstract
General accounts of global trends in world prehistory are dominated by narratives of conquest on land: scavenging and hunting of land mammals, migration over land bridges and colonisation of new continents, gathering of plants, domestication, cultivation, and ultimately sustained population growth founded on agricultural surplus. Marine and aquatic resources fit uneasily into this sequence of social and economic development, and societies strongly dependent on them have often been regarded as relatively late in the sequence, geographically marginal or anomalous. We consider the biases and preconceptions of the ethnographic and archaeological records that have contributed to this view of marginality and examine some current issues focusing on the role of marine resources at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition of northwest Europe. We suggest that pre-existing conventions should be critically re-examined, that coastlines may have played a more significant, widespread and persistent role as zones of attraction for human dispersal, population growth and social interaction than is commonly recognised, and that this has been obscured by hunter-gatherer and farmer stereotypes of prehistoric economies.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Reproduced with permission from Western Academic & Specialist Press |
Keywords: | coastlines,marine resources,palaeodiet,stable isotopes,Mesolithic/Neolithic transition |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Archaeology (York) |
Depositing User: | Repository Officer |
Date Deposited: | 10 Jan 2006 |
Last Modified: | 17 Oct 2024 08:23 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:926 |
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